How to Live Forever (Or Almost)

Centenarians — people who live to be 100 and beyond — are the fastest-growing age group among the world's developed nations. Their numbers are expected to swell to four million by 2050 — and if I live, I'll be one of them. Still, blowing out 100 candles is not on my bucket list, and the same is true for the majority of baby boomers: Only 22% of those who responded to an AARP survey wanted to go the distance. What we're after isn't longevity per se, but a healthy long life.

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Genes play a role in getting us there, but not a big one: Biology accounts for only a third of the secrets to hitting our hundreds. The rest comes from how we take care of ourselves. And, the newest research shows, it doesn't take a lot of work or time to reap big payoffs. Here's exactly what you need to do.

Once a Day

• FLOSS

Bacteria, which can find a home and a feast between your teeth, can stir up a low-grade gum infection and a simmering inflammatory response that increases your risk of heart disease 72%, explains Michael Roizen, M.D., chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic and cofounder of realage.com. (You also need to brush for two minutes twice a day; set a timer or hum "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" four times.)

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TIME SPENT: 60 seconds

PAYOFF: 6.4 added years

• TAKE A MULTIVITAMIN

In the Sister Study, a major National Institutes of Health research project following healthy sisters of breast cancer patients, women who took multis were less likely to have chromosome changes linked to aging. Specifically, they had longer telomeres — pieces of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage. Having shortened telomeres is associated with physical aging (see for other simple lifestyle changes that can keep yours from shrinking).

TIME SPENT: 5 seconds

PAYOFF: Slows signs of aging (at the genetic level)

Once a Week

• WEIGH YOURSELF

It's the easiest, cheapest health screening ever. In a study that looked at a cross section of Americans, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that women with the highest amount of body fat (a body mass index of 45) lost an average of eight years of life. Because the life-threatening pounds can creep up, hop on the scale once a week and take measures to keep them off. Three-quarters of the big losers in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) weigh themselves weekly. They're the people who should know about weight loss and maintenance: To be part of NWCR, you need to have lost at least 30 pounds and kept them off for a year. (To calculate your BMI, go to goodhousekeeping.com/bmi-calculator, and if you're not happy with the results, check out the great diet tips and recipes on the site.)

5 Days a Week

• HAVE SOME NUTS

No one is really sure why, but people who are nuts about nuts (they eat them at least five days a week) live longer than people who eat them infrequently. That effect seems to be independent of age, race, and whether the nut eaters do or don't eat meat. Some clues: Nuts are high in "good" monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, including heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. But nuts are also high in calories, so you may want to reach for pistachios. A recent USDA Agricultural Research Service study found that these green nuts have fewer calories than was previously thought — 160 per 30-gram serving (about an ounce). Plus, one ounce of pistachios equals a satisfying 49 unshelled nuts. (Good news for fans of other nuts: The same USDA researchers believe that new studies will show that many types are lower-cal as well.)

TIME SPENT: 9.6 minutes (to shell and eat one ounce of pistachios)

PAYOFF: About 2 added years

• TAKE A SPIN

Literally. A study at UC Berkeley found that after 12 weeks, previously sedentary postmenopausal women who took combo cycling/treadmill classes for an hour a day, five days a week, "functioned as though they were 20 years younger," says researcher George A. Brooks, Ph.D., professor of integrative biology. Endurance exercise, the number one way to boost energy, can erase several important signs of aging: It lowers blood pressure, improves the ability to take in and use oxygen, and boosts the body's ability to ferry glucose from the bloodstream into our cells for fuel, a key element in preventing diabetes. There were even a couple of bonus benefits from these workouts: The women's heart rates dropped (for some, into athlete range) and their fat-burning increased 10%. "These are the kinds of results you would expect to see in much younger women," says Brooks.

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Regular vigorous exercise may also prevent brain drain as you age. A study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA, found that running increased blood flow to the hippocampus, the brain's center of learning and memory, generating and multiplying new cells in the region. There's nothing magical about running: Any movement that gets your heart pumping will work. It's just that the mice in this research couldn't swim or bike.

Or you could try dancing — that's with or without the stars. The physical act of doing the fox-trot or merengue will increase blood flow to the brain. Additionally, it requires some mental effort to listen to the music, pick up the beat, and remember the steps all at the same time. That makes dancing multitasking at its best. (If you don't have a ballroom studio nearby, look for a Zumba class; this latest craze combines aerobic exercise with Latin-style dancing.)

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TIME SPENT: 60 minutes

PAYOFF: Your body will be 20 years younger — and you may grow new brain cells

Every Day

• COMMIT HARA HACHI BU

People living on the Japanese island of Okinawa enjoy exceptionally long and healthy lives. True, it's likely they're genetically blessed — wired to resist inflammation, which can contribute to everything from heart disease and cancer to arthritis and diabetes. Still, they don't rest on their DNA. The Okinawans practice a form of calorie moderation called hara hachi bu, which means, basically, "leave the table when you're 80% full."

Don't panic: That doesn't mean you're going to walk around hungry all day, says Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., a Hawaii-based expert in geriatric medicine and coinvestigator of the study. The Okinawans eat plenty, but unlike many Westerners, they stop before their belts become tourniquets.

Their cultural wisdom is scientifically on target, says Dr. Willcox. When food hits your belly, the stretch receptors in your stomach help relay a message to your brain telling it you're full. But this is no instant message — it takes 20 minutes to arrive. "You actually feel fuller 20 minutes after you put down your fork," says Dr. Willcox. That means if you eat till you're 100% full, you go 20% over capacity at each meal. Worse, because your stomach stretches every time you do this, you'll gradually have to eat more and more to feel satisfied. The Okinawans have taught themselves to wait for the message — hence, they're slim and healthy, even at advanced ages. (Avoiding post-meal bloat isn't the only smart thing the Okinawans do, Dr. Willcox notes. Some of their other life span extenders: a plant-rich diet, regular enjoyable physical activity, and ikigai — which translates to "having a sense that life is worth living.")

PAYOFF: 6 years. Life expectancy for the average Okinawan woman is 87, compared with 81 for the average American

• GET ENOUGH, BUT NOT TOO MUCH, SLEEP

It's hard to argue with more than a million people. That's the number of adults, ages 20 to 102, whose sleep habits a team of British and Italian researchers recently reviewed to determine the best sleep number (that's hours, not a dial on a bed). The scientists found that people who sleep between six and nine hours a night — no less, no more — live longer than those who get fewer or more hours of zzz's. How important are those hours? The sleep-deprived in this analysis were 12% more likely to die within the follow-up period (depending on the study, anywhere from four to 25 years) than those who slept for six to eight hours, an amount the researchers call optimal for health. In most of the studies, this was true no matter what the participants' health problems. More strikingly, "long sleepers," those who regularly got more than nine hours of shut-eye a night, had a 30% greater risk of dying in the follow-up period than those who slept the ideal six to eight.

TIME SPENT: 6 to 8 hours

PAYOFF: A longer life (plus: a trimmer waist and reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure)

• HANG WITH YOUR HOMEYS

In a 10-year study of more than 1,000 people 70 and older, Australian researchers found that those who had a circle of friends outlived folks with the fewest pals by a 22% margin. And apparently blood isn't thicker than water: Having children and a close family network had no effect on participants' longevity.

An even larger analysis, looking at more than 300,000 people from all over the world, found that when it came to life expectancy, the health risk of lack of friends was roughly equivalent to that of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and double that of obesity. However, having pals had the same beneficial effect on health as quitting smoking, losing weight, and exercising. "People who had relationships were, on average, 50% more likely to be alive at the end of the study period (an average of 7.5 years)," says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D., a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Utah who analyzed 148 studies for the research. These findings translate to a survival advantage of three to four years for socially connected people, study coauthor Timothy B. Smith, Ph.D., calculates. What's more, "The studies that looked at multiple aspects of relationships, not only how many people are in your social network but the functions they serve — if you have a close confidante, for example — found that participants with such a variety of pals had a 90% increased likelihood of being alive at the end of the study period," says Holt-Lunstad.

PAYOFF: 3 to 4 added years

Every Year

• GET A MAMMOGRAM

In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force scaled back breast cancer screening recommendations to every other year after age 50 and to a "discuss with your doctor" schedule for women in their 40s. But earlier this year, researchers from the University of Colorado-Denver and the University of Michigan took another look at the same data the government panel had used to develop its guidelines. That "second opinion": If all women begin yearly mammograms at 40, 71% more lives would be saved, compared with the 23% benefit the 2009 guidelines would yield. That means, the researchers estimate, that 10,000 fewer women would die of breast cancer each year.

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TIME SPENT: 45 minutes (plus travel and waiting time)

PAYOFF: A 21.4% lower risk of dying of breast cancer

Every 5 Years

— CHECK YOUR CHOLESTEROL

Because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., reducing your major risk factors — such as high cholesterol — can give you a longevity edge. The ways to lower your overall number, as well as "bad" (LDL) cholesterol, are well-known: Avoid saturated fat (butter, fatty meats, full-fat dairy), and eat more monounsaturated fats, like olive oil; eat cold-water fatty fish, such as salmon and mackerel, for their omega-3 fatty acids; and cut back on simple carbs like candy, ice cream, cake, and white bread. Your goal: total cholesterol under 200, LDL below 100 (70 if you have significant risk factors for heart disease).

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Raising your "good" (HDL) cholesterol is more challenging (60 and up is protective against heart disease), but this may be what earns you membership in the centenarians' club. Many of the folks who hit the century mark in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Longevity Genes study had HDL levels over 80 even if they smoked, ate junk, and didn't exercise. The best idea is to inherit great HDL — the study director Nir Barzilai, M.D., suspects his "healthy hundreds" did — but there are a few ways to give your HDL cholesterol a boost even if you didn't win that particular genetic lottery. These include: Lose weight if needed (10 pounds off can raise HDL 1.5 points), drink alcohol, and, most important, exercise 30 minutes or more most days of the week.

LIFE SPAN CHANGERS

You might say, "duh," but people who do just these four things extend their life expectancy by 14 years, a British study found:

Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily

Exercise regularly

Drink a moderate amount of alcohol (up to seven glasses a week)

Avoid smoking

How long will you live?

Two free sites help you calculate:

Gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/~foster/mortality offers an online test that will estimate your life expectancy. It also can be used to gauge how much life insurance you may need — the questionnaire was developed at a business school.

Livingto100.com, a 40-question calculator created by the researchers at the New England Centenarian Study, estimates your chances of making it to 100 — and, based on your answers, provides personalized advice you can share with your doctor.

This Old Mouse

Eating a very-low-calorie diet can keep lab animals going like the Energizer bunny, though it doesn't do much for their personalities. The question now: Will caloric restriction do the same for you?

He lived 70% longer than the average normal lab mouse, and when he died at age 4 in 2004, Yoda was reputedly one of the longest-lived mice in the world. A lifelong resident of the University of Michigan, Yoda probably owed his longevity to a genetic mutation. Being a mutant — or having your genes scientifically manipulated — is one of the ways that mice and rats achieve longevity in the lab.

The closest researchers have gotten to "try this at home" is with calorie restriction, which can boost mouse life span 40%. Still, some experts are now questioning the idea that severely limiting calories will gain humans an equivalent number of birthdays (cutting back moderately to reach ideal weight is a different matter). "As mice eat less and less, they get this huge payoff in terms of life span. Humans, however, don't seem to. Even the people in Okinawa, who consume an average of 1,900 calories per day, live only 18 months longer than men in Tokyo, who are consuming 2,300 calories a day," notes Jay Phelan, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist at UCLA.

There's another reason Phelan thinks that calorie restriction is not such a great idea: When you deprive mice of food, he has found, they get agitated. "You open their cage, and they will try to run away. Or, as soon as you pick them up, they will bite you." Do you really think, he asks, "it's worth being miserable so that you can live a year and a half longer?"

Can the Glass Be Too Full?

Thinking positively may extend your years — provided you don't take it too far

Plenty of studies have reported that optimists live longer than pessimists. And while it's true that looking on the bright side may be a pleasant way to pass your years, an eight-decade study of 1,500 children found that you can go overboard on optimism. The cheerful, fun-loving kids in the Terman Study — call them cockeyed optimists — lived shorter lives on average than their diligent and prudent cohorts who dotted every "i" and crossed every "t."

It turns out that the happy-go-lucky ones, who figured that everything was always going to be fine, took too many risks with their health, while their conscientious fellows were more likely to check out that funny-looking mole or worry a little more about that odd pain in their side, explains Howard Friedman, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology at UC Riverside and coauthor of The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study. "We found that being dedicated to others, to work, and having good relationships was what produced good health," Friedman says. "And while you always hear that if you work too hard and get stressed, you'll get sick, we found it was the people who took on increasing responsibility who thrived."

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If you're worried that being conscientious is going to turn you into that dull, dour classmate who never let you see her math homework, Friedman has good news: The diligent children in the Terman Study grew up to be happy, too. "Their behavior actually produced positive moods," he says. And they weren't boring at all. "They were the people who had the most interesting lives, with many going on to leadership positions. You don't advance to become a CEO, general, or governor by being a screwup," says Friedman.

Longer Telomeres, Longer Life

You know what happens when the little plastic end on your shoelace (the aglet) comes off: The lace starts to fray and may begin unraveling. Scientists have likened telomeres — stretches of DNA sequences at the ends of our chromosomes — to aglets because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking together, which can cause the kind of genetic damage that can lead to cancer and other diseases, even death. Because our cells divide as we age, our telomeres get shorter. If they get too short, the cell can no longer divide, and it dies. Overall, older people have shorter telomeres than younger folks, but there's still a lot of variation within age groups — and that variation links to the likelihood of age-related diseases and to longevity itself. When University of Utah geneticist Richard Cawthon, M.D., Ph.D., looked at telomere length in people ages 60 and up, he found those with the shortest telomeres died, on average, 4.8 years sooner than those with the longest ones. There's no evidence you can make telomeres grow longer, but you may be able to slow down the rate at which they shrink. Here's how:

· EAT FISH OR NUTS High blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids are associated with less telomere shortening, the ongoing Heart and Soul Study found.

· GET OUT IN THE SUN or take vitamin D supplements. In a study of more than 2,100 women between the ages of 18 and 79, those who had the most vitamin D in their blood also had the longest telomeres, report U.S. and British researchers. The new guideline for vitamin D is 600 IU a day for women (800 after age 70), but some experts advise more — 1,000 to 2,000 IU. You might ask your physician for a blood test to check your D levels and then see what's best for you.

· MUNCH ON FOODS HIGH IN VITAMINS C AND E Antioxidants can curb the harm that comes from free radicals, unstable molecules that do damage to your cells and that can shorten telomeres. Vitamin C is abundant in fruits and vegetables, and there's E in nuts and vegetable oils. Evidence: In the Sister Study (focused on the healthy sisters of breast cancer patients), women whose diets included lots of these two antioxidants had longer telomeres.

· MEDITATE, do deep breathing or tai chi, or see a counselor. Studies have found that women with the highest levels of stress have telomeres that represent, on average, one decade of additional aging compared with those of less tense counterparts.

· EXERCISE When researchers looked at people with severe stress — those with post-traumatic stress disorder, victims of childhood abuse, and Alzheimer's caregivers — they found that the participants all had shorter telomeres in their white blood cells, a marker of poorer immune system health and a bellwether of cell aging. But exercise seems to be able to short-circuit telomere shrinkage even for these people: In a study of women who'd been abused as children, those who maintained a regular exercise regimen that included vigorous activity at least three times a week didn't have shortened telomeres.